SPN Legacy: Episode 2: On Haunted Ground
by thebeatingofherwings
Summary: Lucas gets a lead on a strange haunting case that may have connections to his past. If I list a music cue, it helps me set a tone for a the scene, so please give it a listen for the full effect. I hope you enjoy the ride. Reviews are always welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading!
1. Chapter 1

Burliegh County, North Dakota

The dash lights flickered, a convulsive twinkle of electric green and orange light, illuminating Valorie's face as she sighed and thumped the dashboard with well manicured fingertips. The lights faded out to black. A throbbing hum drifted beneath the dash, so nearly inaudible that she thought she may have imagined it. Suddenly the lights resumed their arrhythmic flickering. The weird light show had begun just a few miles ago and Valorie was already deeply annoyed with it. She took a deep, calming breath during the change-up and resumed singing along to Halestorm, cranking up the volume to drown out the unnerving hum, the sounds of the road, and her own anxious thoughts of breaking down in the middle of nowhere. She had already begun to regret taking this unfamiliar shortcut back home when it got dark. Though it had looked peaceful enough in the late afternoon, nightfall had come rapidly, the horizon had faded away, the once innocuous landscape stretched into an eternal dark highway fit for a B horror film. Her heart twitched with each violent spasm of green light, an omen of car trouble, a deeply ingrained fear trigger for a woman alone on a forgotten road. She lost herself in the daydream concert of a lifetime, onstage alongside Lzzy, belting out hit after hit, standing back to back with the gorgeous star in perfect pitch.

The stereo glitched, skipping the song like a scratched CD although it was streaming via Bluetooth. For a terrifying moment Lzzy wailed backwards. The song slowed, sped up, skipped. The dash lights danced along to the turbulent rhythm. Valorie's breath caught in her throat.

"What the hell…" she gasped.

The whole car shook violently. The engine died. She coasted to rough stop, the headlights dimming too rapidly to see where she was going. A chill rolled through as she sat there, the darkness stifling, the silence a buzz in her ears.

"Shit," she muttered, turning the key almost frantically. The engine was unresponsive, lying dead in its compartment. Valorie shoved a trembling hand into her purse, searching for her phone. The screen lit up a reassuring blue when her hand bumped into it. She scrolled through quickly, pressed the telephone icon beside her husband's contact picture.

 _Dialing…_ the screen read. When the call failed she tried again.

 _Dialing… Searching for service…_

She tapped on the phone's flashlight and rummaged through her glove box for her motor club card. She typed the number quickly. She had only ever used her motor club once before, when she had locked her keys in the car at the grocery store, and she knew they would ask for her location. The darkness pressed lewdly against the car windows, obscuring her view of anything outside, any landmark or street sign. Maybe they could track her phone's GPS? She looked back to the screen.

 _Dialing…_

Valorie set the phone down on the passenger seat and tried to start the car again. Not even the weakest whir from the starter pierced the suffocating silence. She grabbed the phone again and typed 911.

 _Searching for service…_

Valorie's heart pounded in her chest. She felt like she was being watched from outside in the moonless night. She had taken the shortcut to avoid the heavy Friday night traffic on Hwy 83 out of Bismark where she had gone to interview for a very promising position that offered a lot more than she was making now, enough the justify the move they were so desperate for, and it had gone so well she was sure she had nailed it. The warmth of her excitement turned to ice water in her gut as she sat shivering in her broken down car in the middle of nowhere, wishing she had been just a little more patient and stayed on the main highway.

A bright light flashed in her rearview mirror. Valorie glanced up with a start. A vehicle was approaching from behind. She felt an uneasy brew of relief and fear churn in her gut. She tried calling 911 again.

 _Dialing…_

"Damn it." She gripped her phone tight in her hand and watched through the back window as the vehicle came up on her, growing larger as it got closer. Red and yellow lights flashed on, rotating hypnotically, followed by the growing rumble of a large diesel engine. Valorie exhaled sharply, suddenly aware she had been holding her breath. It was just a tow truck. Her call to either the motor club or emergency services must have gotten through.

Valorie took a deep breath and gathered herself. The truck pulled ahead of her, shifted roughly, backed up in line with her car. The tow truck showered her in the blinding white light of the work halogens. She squinted against the light, still clutching her phone and motor club card tight in her hands. She watched with wary eyes as the driver exited the truck and approached her.

"Evening," he said with a nod of his head, addressing her through the rolled up window. She had half expected him to look like a horny, gnarled, hooked-handed maniac out of some highway murderer urban legend. The driver, Billy according to the name embroidered on the pocket of his work shirt, looked no more menacing than a middle aged dad at a neighborhood barbeque. He had the body of a man who might have been a jock in high school, and probably still enjoyed a weekend basketball game with his buddies, but had been softened and rounded by domestic life and beer. His face was harder to see in the semi-dark, obscured as it was by a two day old beard and the tell tale black grime of a man who worked on cars for a living. Valorie thought that with a shower, shave, and off-duty clothes he was likely pretty cute.

Valorie got out of the car and handed him her motor club card. He tucked it into his shirt pocket without a glance before turning to start hooking up her car.

"You can wait in the truck," he called over his shoulder. "The heat's on."

"Okay," Valorie replied, stepping cautiously to the passenger side of the tow truck. She opened the door and climbed up. The cab was illuminated blue from the dash and radio lights. The heater fan was blowing, yet it felt chillier inside than it had outside. The radio belched a steady stream of static, the volume down low. Valorie carefully pushed a scattering of papers across the bench and buckled up, feeling uneasy, jumping at the sudden, violent sounds of her car being loaded onto the tow hook. There was a dancing hula girl on the truck dash. Valorie hadn't seen one in years and didn't think anyone still made those silly things anymore. The hula girl trembled, seeming to shake her head _no no no_ , as the truck shook and vibrated.

Valorie tried calling her husband again.

 _Searching for service…_

Valorie jumped again when Billy wrenched the driver side door open. It groaned in protest as though it had not been used in decades, resentful at having been disturbed from its oxidizing slumber.

"Where to?" Billy asked, staring unblinking at Valorie.

"Uh, Baldwin," she stammered. There was something about his eyes that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up. One was shadowed, a dark hollow in his face, and the other looked too pale, even milky in the faded blue light of the dash. She thought maybe he had a cataract. Maybe it was just the low light. She found herself staring at his stubbed chin to avoid making contact with his eyes.

Billy put the truck in gear and drove without another word. Valorie quietly, desperately, attempted to call her husband again. Her phone showed no service bars and no data connection. The screen flickered, skewing and inverting, distorting the wallpaper photo of husband and their two golden retrievers into a hellish landscape of wrong colors and twisted features. The phone died in her hand. She pushed the power button frantically, willing it to turn on so she could call for help.

It seemed like they had been driving forever. They had to be getting close to Baldwin, yet there were no road signs, no lights from houses or businesses even in the distance, and not another car in sight. Despite the heater fan blowing the temperature inside the cab of the tow truck was dropping. The windows began icing up from the inside. Valorie watched her own breath escaping her in rapid puffs of fog.

Valorie let out an audible gasp as Billy suddenly took an unexpected left turn onto a dusty road. She dropped her phone to grip the door handle, the truck slamming it's way over the road, driving much too fast for the deep ruts and potholes, the car in tow shifting uncontrollably from side to side, rocking the truck harder. Valorie's blood ran cold. Billy was staring at her with his cold, dead eyes, having no need to watch the road he had travelled countless times. He slammed on the brakes, skidding to a violent stop. Valorie was thrown forward, the loose lap belt only partially retraining her, her face hitting the glove box with a solid thud.

She sat back up, hand to her bloodied mouth. Billy appeared to flicker, just like her dash lights had, two versions of the man rapidly flashing between planes of existence, one still looked like the grubby living man, one long dead. Val let out a blood curdling scream as Billy reached for her, inhumanly fast, with icy, withered hands.


	2. Chapter 2

(music cue: Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf)

Waunakee, Wisconsin

Lucas looked up from the older bike he was working on, his deep concentration broken by a call, the insistent tune of his phone rising above the music pumping through the stereo. He instinctively knew who was calling and why. His motorcycle customers called the shop phone, his _other_ clients called his cell. He had friends who called him, sure, but it had been a little too quite lately on the hunting front and he had a feeling something would surface soon. He stood, wiping his greasy hands down the front of his oil-stained coveralls, and used his least blackened knuckle to click _Answer_ and _Speaker_.

"Hey, Corey," he said brightly, unzipping and shrugging out the top half of his overalls, shaking out his sweaty arms and pulling his dark gray, hole-pocked t-shirt away from his chest. He tied the bulky arms of his coveralls around his waist and carded his fingers through his dark, messy hair.

"Hey," his caller cooed back. "I have something for you."

"Cool. I'm almost done with this bike. As soon as the guy picks it up I'm ready to hit the road. Whadya got?"

"First, tell me more about your dream girl," Corey teased, his tone playful. He had known Lucas for years. They first met in an evening mythology course, Lucas taking his first few classes at the local community college while Corey was flirting with finishing the degree he had abandoned ten years earlier. Over the course of a several all-nighters, intense beer-fueled discussions, and one very ugly run-in with a vengeful spirit they had become best friends despite their age difference.

"Ugh, she's not my dream girl," Lucas sighed, desperately trying to fight the smile pulling at his lips at the memory of those fierce golden eyes.

"Well. She kicked your ass at hunting, so maybe she's my dream girl."

"Ya know, to be fair, I don't do all that much _creature_ hunting."

"Oh, that's right, I forgot you're the goddamn Ghost Whisperer."

Lucas laughed softly and shook his head. "Didn't you say you have something for me?"

"There's a phantom woman, appearing on an old stretch of Hwy 183 near Baldwin, North Dakota. Sounds like she only materializes for lone females. I did some research and that whole area has a long history of bad shit."

Lucas shrugged, his interest refocused on the bike in front of him. "So, find the bones, salt and burn, end of ghost. Hardly worth the ride out there."

"Here's where it gets weird…" Corey's tone changed, slipping into a darker register. Of all the things out there lurking in the dark, it was ghosts that got to him most, crawled under his skin and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "Someone already did. Back in 1989. The body of a missing woman, Amanda Marsh, was recovered, salted, and burned. Her killer was even caught. Her spirit hasn't been seen since. Until now."

"Weird," Lucas agreed, tightening a bolt.

"And relevant to your interests," Corey teased, though his tone remained serious. "The hunter on the original case in '89 was John Winchester."

Lucas looked up. He could have the bike ready for pickup by this evening of he skipped lunch and dinner, and he could be packed and on the road to North Dakota by tonight. "Text me the details," he said, finishing off the bolt.

"You got it. And hey, hug your mom for me."

"Why don't you crawl out of your creepy bunker, take a shower, and hug her yourself? She worries about you, you know."

Corey nodded slowly to himself. He would never let on how badly he wanted, or needed, someone to care about him, to even think about him when he had his darkest, hardest days. He glanced around his tiny apartment, a hoarder's safe haven crammed full of mythology and lore, supernatural artifacts and hand-drawn wards against every known creeper made in Sharpie marker across the walls and ceiling, accented with stacks of dirty dishes and take out containers, piles of laundry and supermarket tabloid papers. "I prefer the term _study_ ," he replied haughtily.

Lucas pushed himself to complete the BMW tune-up early, though thoroughly, as he would not risk the quality of his work, nor endanger the reputation he had built for himself as a highly skilled and professional mechanic. He worked with the same care and attention to detail on repairing and customizing motorcycles as he did on hunting and putting down everything that went bump in the night, from vengeful spirits to vampires. Lucas was well known as a perfectionist in both his trades, pouring himself into every job almost to the point of obsession.

He worked over the hunt details in his head as he packed his things. Ghosts did not come back. Once the bones had been salted and burned to ash, returned to the earth, the ties with the spirit were forever severed, releasing it to its final destination. Ghosts did not simply reappear after forty years. This was definitely his kind of hunt.

Andrea Barr stood quietly in the bedroom doorway and watched her son pack up to leave again. He had perfected the art of packing light for his _work_ trips, taking only a single hiking backpack. It was dusky blue and faded black with a fine patina earned on hundreds of miles of travel down freeways and back roads across America, sometimes Canada, deep and multi-pocketed with a light aluminum frame, just right for carrying a few day's worth of clothes and the tools of his occult trade. She knew he carried at least one gun, and did not care to think about how many other weapons he might have stashed in his pack.

Lucas and his mother had an unspoken agreement; he didn't tell her what work was and she didn't worry. Only she did. Every job, every time he left home, she worried. He had come home a month ago with an vivid mess of deep purple-blue bruises across his back, three broken ribs, and a goofy smile that reminded her of the Christmas mornings of his childhood. He had, as usual, downplayed how injured he truly was, reassuring her that the job in Washington had been a piece of cake, nothing he couldn't handle, and when she had taken him to the emergency room, as she had countless times before, he predictably used one of his well-rehearsed excuses of having laid down his bike on a country ride to avoid a deer or some other animal.

He was the only thing she had left in the world, her baby, and she could not bear the thought of losing him, though she understood his unrelenting drive to protect other people from the same tragedies they had suffered. She knew from an early age he was special, scarred in a way other children couldn't relate to, cursed or blessed, _changed_ at such a tender age, _changed_ in a way that put him on this dangerous path, made him one of the few who could do what he did. She loved him so much it ached but would not show him her fear, would not let him see in her eyes the cold, slithering thing that twisted through her gut, constricted her chest until she could hardly breathe and her heart could barely beat. She just smiled, hugged him as if she might never hold him again, and let him believe she was not afraid that he would never come home to her.

Lucas hit the road long after sunset, riding out into the night, fueled by strong coffee and the desire to cross paths, even 40 years after the fact, with the Winchesters. He sometimes got close, but never close enough. Some leads were bad, some trails cold, some hunts long forgotten. He rode on, tunes in one ear, the soothing hum of the road in the other. Corey had texted him a few links to shady online tabloids and ghost tourism websites that had documented the phantom woman story along with the case of Amanda Marsh. The whole countryside was ripe with urban legends, ghost stories, and general weirdness. It would take some time to sort through the detritus and get down to the real facts. But this, a hardcore ghost case, was right in his wheelhouse.

Twelve long hours later Lucas rolled into town, a quaint embodiment of Small Town America decorating the otherwise flat, featureless landscape, a pale oasis in the mid morning light. He was road-weary, hungry, in desperate need of a piss and a nap. He rode down the main drag, navigating his way to the cheapest motel on the far end of town, past old fashioned brick store fronts sharply contrasted with more modern facades just a few blocks down. He approached the Jasper Café, a smallish diner with the look of a place that would neither break his budget nor give him food poisoning. He made a mental note to stop back by after getting settled into his room and hopefully catching an hour or two of shut eye before diving into his investigation. As he passed he did a double take, his gut unfolding butterfly wings, a helpless grin having its way with his mouth. In the parking lot of the café sat a very familiar blue '70 Challenger.


	3. Chapter 3

The scent of hot bacon grease and the jarring clink of cheap cutlery on even cheaper plates greeted Lucas as he stepped into the Jasper Café, dead on his feet tired, his hair tousled by his helmet, his midnight dark eyes scanning the counter and booths. He found her at the far end of the café, in the last booth with her back to the wall, her deep copper eyes locked on him from the moment he walked in. She lowered her head slightly, looking at him from beneath dark lashes, one corner of her bare lips teasing upward into a warm smile as the morning light softly illuminated the dappling of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

Rachel sat back comfortably, her position allowing her to survey the entire field of the café, her long legs stretched out under the table, her crossed ankles propped on the bench seat across from her. A small laptop sat open on the table before her, to the side of it a chipped plate full of hot, salty fries and a frosted glass half full of Jasper's famous hand-made strawberry milkshake. The green undertones of her eyes became more apparent the closer Lucas got, and she never took those piercing eyes off him when she shifted her legs over to make room.

"Lucas," she said with a playful tilt of her head, her chestnut and honey hair in a messy bun. She pushed the plate of fries across the table toward him as he sat. "What brings you to town?" she inquired with what was proving to be a permanent twinkle in her eyes. "You look like hell, by the way."

"Thanks," he replied with an amused huff and shake of his head. The leather of his jacket creaked softly as he reached for the fries. "I rode all night."

"From…?"

"Wisconsin," Lucas offered around a mouthful of fries. "Where did you come in from?"

Rachel gave a half shrug, her gaze returning to the laptop screen. "I was in the neighborhood."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. He did not believe for a moment that Rachel just happened to _be in the neighborhood_ of such an unusual haunting. He did, however, keenly understand that theirs was a dangerous lifestyle, and respected her disinclination to give away her home base and phone number to every disheveled biker she met on a hunt. He ran his fingers self-consciously through the unwashed mess of his dark hair, the lingering French fry grease and salt on his fingertips styling it up into spiky peaks after being flattened by his helmet.

Rachel watched Lucas eat the fries with the gusto of a starving child but the manners of a man who wanted to present a chill exterior. "How long since you last ate?" she inquired, more than acquainted with hunger herself.

Lucas sucked his fingertips as politely as possible. "Not since breakfast yesterday," he spoke around his thumb. Before he could stop her Rachel had waved the waitress over and ordered the largest country breakfast on the menu.

"You need to eat," she cut him off before he could protest. "And you haven't told me what brings you to beautiful Nowhere, North Dakota."

"I came here," he began, his tone low enough to not be overheard above the rhythmic hum of other breakfast conversations, "to find a spirit. She's been spotted out on the old highway south of here, in the middle of nowhere. Seems to have a preference for lone women. The weird thing is, she may be linked to an old case."

Rachel glanced up from her screen, receptive. "Like a phantom hitchhiker?"

"Possibly."

"How long has she been out there?" she asked, her eyes narrowed.

Lucas shook his head and shrugged slowly. "It's hard telling for sure, but the current reports go back about six months."

"Does she look like this?" Rachel turned her laptop toward Lucas. The screen displayed a collage of photos, all harvested from social media accounts, of a smiling woman in her mid 30's. She had light brown eyes, dark purple hair, and by all appearances was loving her life. "Valorie McLoughlin," Rachel said, matching Lucas's low key volume. "She vanished one night on her way home to Baldwin from Bismark. _About six months ago_. One of three women to disappear in the area most recently. And my guess is she took that backwater shortcut for some reason instead of staying out on the freeway."

Lucas felt the familiar chill of a true ghost story. "You said most recently?"

Rachel nodded, turning her laptop back around quickly as the waitress returned with an oversized plate that had clearly seen better days, barely able to contain its cargo of fried eggs, bacon, hash browns, and biscuit, most of which was covered with a thick, steaming blanket of country sausage gravy. Lucas dug in the moment the plate hit the table.

"Yes," Rachel continued. "There were several disappearances in Burliegh County in the 70's and 80's, all of them women. It finally ended in 1989 when the police caught a local creep whose hobbies included kidnapping and murdering women."

Lucas crinkled his brow. "There were sightings of a woman out on the old highway throughout the 80's. And in 1989, the usual story; A hunter rolls into town, recovers a body, does a quick salt and burn, no more sightings. Until about six months ago. Ghosts don't get back up after that, so I'm here to take a look."

Rachel cocked an eyebrow.

Lucas shrugged and unleashed his most charming smile. "I told you, I'm a specialist."

Rachel's expression was difficult to read, a poker face of self preservation. She did, in fact, remember Lucas telling her he was an especially talented ghost hunter, and under the circumstances she had hoped to bump into him here. Although his target differed from hers, she suspected they were on the same hunt.

She shrugged. "Maybe the hunter in question wasn't that good. Maybe he botched the job. This wouldn't be the first time I've had to clean up after someone else's mess."

"Nope," Lucas replied, short and solid. "That hunter was John Winchester. One of the best who ever lived. He didn't botch the job. I'd bet my bike on it."

Rachel raised her eyebrows but did not respond. She thought quickly, but the name did not ring a bell. "I don't know many hunters, and that was way before my time."

"Have you heard of Sam and Dean Winchester?"

Rachel's eyes darkened, just for a moment, then she smiled, though it did not reach her eyes. "You mean the Apocalypse Brothers? Sure, who hasn't heard those stories? Not that I believe most of the bullshit about them, like Dean can't be killed and Sam is the Devil himself. I do buy that they got in over their heads and jump started the End Times. Although that seems to have fizzled out so who knows how accurate those stories are, either."

Lucas nodded, though the muscles of his jaw flexed furiously. "Yes, there is a lot of legend that surrounds them. John was their father, and a damn good hunter in his own right. If he put down a ghost, it stayed down. I think the highway ghost is related to that case but is not the same spirit. Now. What brings you here?"

"Billy Breaker was a serial killer in the 70's and 80's," Rachel began, leaning in closer to Lucas. "He ran a towing and auto wrecking service on the outskirts of Baldwin. He liked to snatch stranded women off the highway, torture them, then lock them inside their own cars and put them in the crusher. He kept some of them alive for months."

Lucas wrinkled his nose. "What a sick bastard," he growled.

"He killed more than a dozen women. When the break downs were scarce he started disabling vehicles so he could tow them off. No one suspected him. The State Police thought most of the disappearances were happening in or around Bismark. Billy was a respected member of the Baldwin community. He even towed for the police and helped out in most of the investigations. It wasn't until someone stumbled onto a body out at his wrecking yard that they nailed him. The son of a bitch blew his own brains out when the police closed in. That should be the end of the story. But now, three women have gone missing in this part of the county in the last six months. I think it's ole' Billy Breaker, picking up where he left off thirty-some years ago. I want to know how a monster like that crawls out his grave, and how I can put him back in it. _Permanently_."

Rachel felt she had shared more than she wanted to. There was something about the warm intensity of his eyes and the relaxed set of his shoulders that almost made her want to trust Lucas. Just a little. This one had a story. All hunters did, but his intrigued her. If he had any rough edges they were well concealed. His body language did not tell the tales of blood and trauma that most of his brethren shared. Lucas was, despite his intimidating height of 6'1" and his solid build, for lack of a better word, gentle. Her messy history had taught her that hunters were seething under their skin, ready to kill rather than be killed at any moment, well honed yet poorly guided killing machines. Lucas was different than anyone she had encountered. She felt an odd twinge of kinship with him.

"Do you think they're related?" Lucas asked, finishing off his breakfast. He was well aware she had been staring for a long, contemplative moment. "Do you think somehow Billy himself is back, and it's not a copycat killer, and that the highway spirit is Valorie, or one of the missing women? Do you think he is killing again?"

Rachel nodded slowly. "It's him. I can feel it. I just don't know how yet."

"Well, with a ghost or a wraith or whatever it may be, the _how_ isn't the problem. It's the _why_. Why now? It's been 34 years. Why would he have returned? And why is there another spirit out wandering the highway?"

Rachel sipped her milkshake. She had neither an answer nor a solid guess at this point.

Lucas considered what Corey had told him last night. "My, uh, research says this whole area seems to be unusually high in supernatural activity," he offered, willing the conversation forward. It was so rare for him to be able to have a conversation with someone about what he did, much less with anyone so well studied and intellectual.

"If there is such thing as a focal point for spirit activity, we're right in the middle of one."

"Yes, there is," Lucas said with a reassuring nod. "Some places draw supernatural energy. Some radiate it. If this place is hot it could easily explain how your dead killer is up and roaming around."

"Hey. I, uh, have an appointment this afternoon, if you want to come with. I'm meeting with a woman who was a reporter for the Baldwin Post back in the day. She covered the story when Breaker was caught. She thinks I'm a journalism student at the university in Bismark doing an interview for a class project."

"Yeah, count me in. First I, um, need a shower, and maybe an hour or two of sleep. Where's good to stay?"

Rachel waved for the check. "I have a room at this run down place a few blocks from here. It looks permanently vacant. I'm sure there are higher end places, though."

"No, no, I don't need anything fancy. I mean, look at me. I'm rugged."

Rachel giggled and shook her head, snatching the check off the table before Lucas could grab it.

Lucas crawled face first onto the bed, grateful to finally be horizontal. The lumpy, broken down mattress creaked and groaned, protesting his body's presence with his every movement, and there were several movements required to finally settle into a semi-comfortable position before exhaustion won over discomfort and he felt himself drifting off. The room had an odd, off-putting smell, like a musty basement in the heat of summer. The shabby motel itself looked as though it could be, or should be, just a few days short of being condemned. But, it was cheap and hopefully he wouldn't be here long.

"I hope you don't snore," Rachel called, her voice barely muffled through the paper-thin walls. "I can hear you rolling around over there."

Lucas realized their neighboring rooms were mirror images of each other as he heard the creak of the dilapidated mattress next door against the wall behind his cheap headboard. He drifted off into a deep sleep knowing that if their rooms were merged, Rachel would be sitting by his side as he slept.

Rachel opened her journal and began organizing a page on the life of Billy Breaker. She sorted old newspaper clippings and police reports, establishing his timeline, correlating evidence, while she took notes on her laptop of questions to ask Mrs. Lafayette when they spoke later in the afternoon. On the opposite page she wrote **_WHY?_** in bold, clear letters. Why, after thirty-plus years would Billy suddenly crawl back through the veil and start killing again? What moved him, motivated him? What had woken him, and how could she put him down for good?


	4. Chapter 4

The pipes next door roared to life after a painful moment of rattling and groaning, the shower head finally bursting with hot water. Rachel took the sound of Lucas's shower as her cue to pack for the day. She opened a faded two-tone gray canvas messenger bag that already contained her Smith & Wesson 9mm, tucked into a liner pocket within easy reach. She slid in her laptop, an EMF detector, a lightweight tactical hunting knife, and her journal; a black, soft-bound 8x10 book that she was already ten months of research and hunts deep into. It included an entry on Lucas, a rarity as she deftly avoided hunters and found few, if any, worth noting. She had sketched Lucas's face in profile, looking into the distance as he had watched the trees for signs of an attack the day she had first met him. At the top of the page she had written his name, _Lucas Barr_ , in crisp script, and down the side a handful of notes and observations she had made during their initial meeting, including his description, the vintage motorcycle he seemed to become one with when he rode, and his purported affinity for ghosts. Today she added that he was from Wisconsin, and simply wrote _Ink?_ while she wondered if he harbored any tattoos under that black leather jacket of his, the one with a bullet hole through the heart. She left ample space on the creamy, off-white page for more notes about this boy who pulled at her curiosity like the moon at the tide as she got to know him better. If she got the chance to know him better.

She found it odd, though, that he had mentioned the Winchesters. She would look more into John later, though she had heard some outrageous tales about his sons – reckless, dangerous men - during her less than formal _education_ through the sordid network of hunters and their associates she had once been a part of. Not that they were the worst of the hunters. She had heard stories of some who had gone so far off the rails they had become more vicious and bloodthirsty than the monsters they hunted. She knew of a few who had to be put down like rabid dogs. She had seen it herself. That hunting monsters, choosing a destiny of slogging through the unending torrent of blood and guts and loss could so easily forge good men into monsters was one of many lessons learned during those formative years, but the one that really hit home was the revelation that she was here, now, living a shadow life as a casualty of the Winchester brothers' selfish actions.

Lucas dried off with a clean but worn, threadbare motel towel, thankful to be full, rested, and clean. He pulled on dark blue jeans, a black V-neck shirt, and his road-dusty boots. He sent a quick text to Corey, letting him know he had arrived safely and requesting background info on Billy Breaker, before tucking his phone away in his front jeans pocket. He pulled on his leather jacket and slung his bag over his shoulder as he stepped out the door and walked right into Rachel. His reflexes were quick and he caught her before she stumbled. She instinctively gripped his upper arms and offered a patient giggle.

"Nice running into you," she said, her balance recovered. "So, your ride or mine?"

Lucas blinked. He was looking into her golden eyes, his hands still carefully gripping her waist as her hands remained firmly on his arms, his heart unsure if it should be beating in his chest or in his throat.

Rachel quickly glanced away and released him. She wore a state college sweatshirt, very short jean shorts, and a pair of black Converse, her hair still in its messy bun with a golden halo of loose, wavy strands.

"We can take my car," she offered. "Unless you have an extra helmet?"

Lucas stammered and dropped his hands, clearing his throat. "Uh, your car is fine." He never carried an extra helmet. Although the well of attractive women who oohed and aahed over his bike never seemed to run dry, he had no one in his life that he cared to ride with. It required a closeness, a sense of trust, to ride with someone. He had done it in his high school days, offering rides to the girls he wanted to impress, hoping the sheer coolness of the bad boy biker image he fumbled so awkwardly with would overshadow the stigma he had grown up with. It never felt quite right. He learned instead to welcome the freedom of riding alone, embracing the wind as his thoughts and memories were drowned out by the roar of the motor. He found peace over endless miles of blacktop. He watched Rachel slide in beside him, easing back into the black leather bucket seat and stretching her long legs out. Her eyes lit up with a passionate fire as she turned the key and the Challenger roared to life. She reversed out of the parking spot and spun around with expert precision, offering Lucas a quick, playful wink before peeling out. The acceleration out on the highway pressed Lucas back in his seat, which he didn't mind at all, the wind battering his hair through the open window. He made a mental note to buy an extra helmet when he got home.

"Mrs. Lafayette, I'm Rachel Cairn. It's nice to meet you in person."

Rachel introduced herself with such a gentle charm and sunny smile that Lucas found it hard to believe this was the same woman who had burst out of nowhere in the dark, blindsided and disarmed him.

"This is Lucas, he's my partner on this assignment. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today."

Lucas shook Mrs. Lafayette's hand. She was a petite woman, fit in her mid seventies, with well-maintained silvery blond hair and a comfortably Bohemian wardrobe. She invited them in graciously, a little confused as to why anyone would want to bring up the grisly Breaker case after so many years, yet flattered to have been remembered as the lead on the story as it broke. As a retired journalist she was quite prepared to be interviewed, and to assist a young journalism student. She had refreshments ready on a rustic wooden tray on the glass coffee table, which was decorated with well organized piles of relevant papers that had survived the decades in the back of a modest filing cabinet. A pile of newspaper clippings sat neatly atop the two or three copies of the Baldwin Post that ran the story on the front page, a stack of 8x10 black and white photographs of the crime scene – Breaker's property – the torture room, the shallow graves and crushed cars, the barely recognizable remains of his victims. In another stack she had placed her hand-written notes and drafts, along with a cheap, faded business card for John Smith, Parapsychologist, with a South Dakota telephone number. On the back side the telephone number for a long-since closed motel and _Room #10_ was printed neatly in pencil.

Mrs. Lafayette handed Rachel a large envelope. "I made copies of everything for you, to help with your story."

"Thank you so much," Rachel said, tucking the envelope into her bag. She took out her notebook and pen, turning to the page of questions she had written.

Lucas sifted through the photos. They were gruesome, despite the lack of red, the play of light and shadow telling a dark tale of pain and terror. He had no doubt that some of these women had found themselves trapped even after death, like rabid animals in cages, tethered to their corpses and left to cry out for eternity. He felt himself drawn in, pulled inexplicably to some images more than others. Where the camera had only captured stale decomposition, Lucas watched as three of the women's faces drifted into view, as if rising from deep water, filling out the ruined features of their shattered skulls, their lifeless eyes snapping open, their wounded lips moving. He listened to the whisper of voices, the hushed tones of distant panic. The hair on the back of his neck rose, his mouth went dry, and his blood ran cold. The whispers spun slowly around his head, an urgency to their indistinguishable words, pulling him away from himself. His body grew cooler, numb and adrift, as he tried to focus on the mumbled dialogue of the dead.

 _Lucas…_

"Lucas."

Lucas gasped, almost inaudibly, as he snapped out of his trance. Rachel nudged his leg with hers again, her brow furrowing as she offered a subtle nod. He returned the nod, letting her know he was ok. He wondered for a moment why the spirits those three women had not been released when their murders were solved, why they still crouched in their shallow, empty graves, screaming.

Rachel watched him for a moment longer. His eyes had looked hollow just then, as if he had been cut loose from his mooring and was adrift in a far away void. Her gaze was intense, penetrating, a gaze little could hide from. She knew from the recovering distance in his eyes that something was very wrong, but he nodded again, more curtly this time, and she was not in a position to interrupt the interview to question him. She shifted her eyes back toward Mrs. Lafayette, who was still detailing the origins of the case.

"And of course by then we all knew something was going on, we knew it was an unsafe time for ladies out and about alone. But, honestly, we all thought it was something bad happening in the city. Not here. Not in our own backyards," Mrs. Lafayette said softly, her voice strained by regret. "I made that drive a dozen times, to Bismark and back. I will never forget, one night on my way back – I must have run over something because my tire blew out – and I managed to limp to the old Texaco station. It was closed by then, being so late in the evening, but the canopy lights were always on and it had a payphone. It was Billy I called." She exhaled slowly, averting her gaze from Rachel for a moment, gathering herself before she could continue.

Rachel instinctively reached out, placer her hand reassuringly on Mrs. Lafayette's, giving it a gentle, patient squeeze. "That must have been very frightening for you, under the circumstances."

Lucas set the photos back down on the coffee table. They were bent at the edges where he had gripped them too tightly. He leaned forward, bringing himself fully into the conversation, resting his forearms on his knees, observing Rachel as she worked.

"Billy towed me home that night," Mrs. Lafayette finally resumed, her composure regained, though her voice retained a shaky undertone. "He never laid a hand on me. He seemed so normal. We went to school together. I don't think anyone was more shocked than me when the body was found. And of course, as you know, I had to maintain a professional distance and keep cool."

"Can you tell me how the first body was found?" Rachel asked, returning to her notes.

Mrs. Lafayette sighed and offered a self conscious smile. "As you may be aware, there are a lot of… stories about this area, dating back to the earliest settlers, and the Native Americans who lived here for generations before them. Every paranormal investigation show on TV has filmed an episode here. We have ghost sightings, we have foxfire, magnetic anomalies, unexplained disappearances," she spoke with the melodramatic meter of a well-rehearsed monologue. "It is strongly believed by many that most of Burleigh County is built on haunted ground."

Rachel nodded. "Yes, I grew up hearing that. It's our claim to fame, right?" Rachel shared an insider laugh with Mrs. Lafayette. Blending seamlessly into her surroundings was just one of Rachel's highly developed skills. This was her first time in North Dakota.

Lucas admired how well Rachel played her part, as she cherry-picked Mrs. Lafayette's regional dialect and subtle mannerisms, making them her own and mirroring them back, constructing in real time a character the elderly woman might feel more comfortable with, especially concerning such a disturbing subject. Lucas found himself in awe of Rachel. He knew by her natural speaking pattern, as well as her Arizona license plates, that she was nowhere near a native to this part of the country. Though his head still ached from his earlier episode, he observed with fascination.

"You know," Mrs. Lafayette continued, "Back in the 80's the parapsychology thing was huge. Well educated professionals were running around making documentaries with special cameras and equipment, recording voices from beyond with their E—something machines."

"EVP. Electronic voice phenomena," Lucas offered.

"Yes, that's it," she chuckled. There had been stories for about a decade about a ghostly lady appearing out on the old highway, scaring the bejesus out of people driving late at night. In 1989 a parapsychologist named John Smith came to town, looking into the story and wanting to investigate what he referred to as the _apparitional experience_. He stood out from the others," she sighed with a twinkling glance at Rachel, who nodded knowingly in return. "I mean, he was a handsome man. Rolled into town in his shiny black car, with his leather jacket and five o'clock shadow… Ah, he definitely did not have the professor look, that's for sure. Oh, and he had two gorgeous little boys with him. No mom to be found. I didn't think it was right, dragging those two little ones all over the country for his studies, so for the week or so they were here I let the boys stay with me and I spoiled the hell out of them."

"How did you meet John?" Rachel inquired, taking meticulous notes.

"My late husband was a deputy back then and had taken several of the reports from people claiming to see the highway ghost. He was also an investigator on some of the local disappearances. He was one of the people John interviewed for background information. He came to the house and while they talked I baked cookies with his boys." Mrs. Lafayette paused for a moment, a bit shaken as the memories came flooding back. "One of the other people he wanted to interview was Billy."

Mrs. Lafayette sifted through her old notes, not trusting the details of an event thirty years earlier to the clarity of her aging memory. "John went out to Billy's place unannounced, and Billy was on a call. John said he was walking through the wrecking yard, stretching his legs, when he smelled smoke. He followed it and found what he described as recently unearthed, shallow grave, with smoldering human remains in it. He then ran into the garage and called the police with Billy's own telephone. John told me afterward that the woman in the grave was the one haunting the highway but she was at rest now."

"What happened when the police arrived?" Rachel inquired gently. She kept her desire for more in depth information tightly reined in. The more details she had, the better her chances of figuring out how to find, trap, and put Billy Breaker down. She had to know what he was, what she was dealing with.

"They found more bodies right away. The dogs were going crazy. Billy came home from a tire change call to a circus of police from multiple agencies. Local, county, state, all of them. The FBI was en route. He knew. He knew right away what was happening. He knew he was caught. But the bastard spun that big ol' tow truck around and tried to run. Deputies cut him off at the end of the driveway. He pulled out a sawed-off shot gun, and just as they radioed in a standoff he shoved it in his mouth and pulled the trigger." She sighed deeply. "My husband never really got over that day. Seeing all those bodies, those mangled women, murdered right under our noses. Then seeing a man he'd known since grade school blow his own brains out like that. It haunted him for the rest of his life."

"What happened to you back there?" Rachel asked, not taking her eyes off the long, black stretch of highway as they cruised in the direction of Bismark.

Lucas stared out his window, his jaw silently grinding, his gut rolling as her question broke the steady white noise of the road. He cringed inwardly, furious at himself for having slipped and fallen into what Corey so bluntly called a _ghost fugue_ without warning, and deeply ashamed he had done so in front of Rachel. This place was haunted ground, he could feel it all around them, a pulsing chill, an unsettling sensation, and he believed they were close to the epicenter. He sighed, finally answering in a soft, though short, tone, "I get migraines sometimes. It's nothing."

"That wasn't a migraine. Believe me when I say I've seen some dissociation, I know that look, and you were gone somewhere far away."

Rachel rolled her gaze toward Lucas and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His head really was beginning to pound with a tension headache. He wasn't sure anyone other than his mother and Corey had ever seen him slip into that state, at least not since he was very, very young, and that momentary loss of self control felt devastating. He did not want to her to look at him and see a freak.

"You don't have to talk to me, Lucas," she said gently, returning to her scan of the highway shoulder, watching for any sign of an apparition. "But if you want to, you can. I've seen… some crazy shit."

They rode in silence until they crossed out of the darkness into the orange urban haze of streetlights in Bismark. Rachel took the first exit, following surface streets in a gradual U-turn to get back onto the old highway, returning to Baldwin. The sudden immersion into the busy city streets was surreal. The intense glow of streetlights, the strobe of traffic lights, the muffled pulse of music rumbling from bars and vehicles, the laughter and shouts of people out walking. The night felt exciting here, and safe, the assault of contrived light warding off the surrounding darkness and what lurked within it.

Lucas reached into his backpack as Rachel pulled back out onto the highway. It was time to stop trying to impress her with his coolness and get to work. He pulled out a set of mala beads, the discoloration and patina of the beads a testament to their antiquity. A large, smoky crystal hung at the center. Lucas put it around his neck with reverent care. Rachel glanced over at him.

"The beads help me focus my mind. The crystal channels spiritual energy. It's very old, like centuries old, and came from some small European country that no longer exists. It… helps me talk to ghosts. We haven't seen Valorie yet, or whoever it is. This can help."

Rachel nodded. She had never heard of anything like it. "Can I take a closer look later?"

Lucas tensed in his seat, his hands cupping the heavy crystal.

"I won't touch it," she said quickly, not meaning to have made him uncomfortable. "I'm sure it's closely tuned into you. I would just like to see it better. Maybe you could tell me more about it." She paused. "Maybe over breakfast."

Lucas nodded in agreement. He smiled a little. Rachel's reaction was not what he had expected. She was full of surprises.

Rachel and Lucas rode on in comfortable silence, vigilant in their hunt, though it proved fruitless. They returned to the motel and their respective rooms without a glimpse of the ghost of Valorie McLoughlin.


	5. Chapter 5

Eleven year old Rachel Cairn stood paralyzed among the flames, her tearing eyes wide, her mouth distended in a silent cry. Flames rose all around her in a wicked dance of destruction set to the tune of her mother's screams. Her lungs seared with each shallow gasp of boiling air while her long, bed-messy hair singed. Trapped by her terror she listened helplessly to her mother dying, her guttural screams sounding less and less human with each passing moment. Every second lasted an eternity.

Rachel had never heard anything so loud, the roar and crack of the raging fire ricocheting painfully in her ears, pounding within her skull, drowning out even the high pitched wail of her mother's final moments. The walls melted away, the beams behind them buckled. Rachel felt the house collapsing all around her. Her head spun from oxygen starvation, her throat and lungs blistering from the heat and smoke she choked in.

A large, lumbering shape emerged from the flames, charging up the stairs toward her. A split second of eye contact through his thick mask before he reached out and slung a heavy arm around her middle, hoisting her up over his shoulder. The moment of impact snapped her from her trance and she cried out in a long, suffering scream. She struggled against the fire fighter's grip in a blind panic, though he held her tight, rushing out of the burning house as she lost consciousness. The sounds of the fire and the rescuers and the sirens blurred into a single rumble and faded like distant thunder.

An insistent pounding invaded her nightmare, startling her awake with a sharp gasp. She snapped up, grabbing her pistol from under her pillow, trembling all over from adrenaline and glistening with cold sweat. The pounding came again and she realized it was the motel room door. She approached quickly with the Smith & Wesson tucked behind her low back, safety off, ready to defend herself from whatever may be on the other side, well aware that it could be a bullet.

Rachel cautiously opened the door, her mouth dry, her heart pounding. Lucas stood in the doorway, a menacing figure silhouetted by the dim flickering of a street light, his shoulders pulled back, his head angled forward. He was barefoot, wearing only unbuttoned jeans that rode low on his muscular hips, his chest bare and tense. He did not look at Rachel, instead looking past her, his vigilant eyes scanning the room, peering into every shadowed corner for signs of anything that may have harmed her. His right arm was tucked just behind his hip, the Beretta gripped firmly in his hand.

After a tense moment Lucas looked to Rachel, cocking his head slightly, his brow furrowing. She nodded slowly and opened the door further, stepping aside to allow him in. As he walked by she glimpsed the extensive tattooing across his upper arms and shoulders, dark wings unfurled across his rippling back.

Rachel closed the door quietly, taking a moment to catch her breath, her eyes closed, her hand still pressed against the chipped and yellowed paint. She lowered her head, her gun still clutched tightly at her side. She was getting sloppy, just a little too comfortable with Lucas. He could very well be pointing his gun at the back of her head right now.

Lucas turned around, a flush of self-consciousness coming over him as the adrenaline subsided and he became hyper-aware of how little clothing they both wore. Awoken by Rachel's cries through the wall, he had pulled on his jeans, grabbed his gun, and come running without regard for anything else. Rachel wore only black yoga pants, rolled low to her hips and flared at the ankles, and a loose fitting green tank top. Though he didn't want to stare, Lucas could just make out the circular shape of a tattoo between Rachel's well-toned shoulder blades.

"Are you ok?" Lucas finally asked.

"It's fine, Just a bad dream," Rachel answered, lying to ease his mind. She walked past him to the bed, pausing for a moment to get her bearings before tentatively stretching out on her side. To say she trusted Lucas would be too much, but she did not feel threatened by him, though he was powerfully built and armed, and after the visceral shock of her nightmare his presence was a comfort she needed but would never admit to. _Careful, freak. What if he knows?_ hissed the wary voice in the back of her head. _What if he finds out?_ Rachel pushed it away. She planned to vanish off his radar once this case was over, gone by morning like a dream quickly forgotten.

Lucas approached the bed, looking down at Rachel and the visage of exhaustion she believed was hidden under the cover of darkness. "I thought… someone was attacking you," he offered gently.

Rachel shrugged and looked away, laying her head down on the pillow. "I cry in my sleep sometimes. It's nothing. I'm sure you've seen some bad shit, too."

Lucas nodded. He himself was no stranger to night terrors, haunted by memories that could not be salted or burned away. He sat down on the floor beside her, leaning his back against the side of the bed where she lay, setting his gun down at his side and resting his folded arms across his bent knees. He sighed, watching the play of shadows across the walls each time a car passed by, the headlights shining through the blinds setting the darkness in motion. "I don't know why you're here," he began. "Why you're _really_ here. You say you're not a hunter. In fact, you got kinda pissed at me when I called you one. But a month ago I watched you take down a wendigo on your own, and I know now just how deadly they are, because I read your journal cover to cover twice already. And now here you are, on what looks an awful lot like a case, tracking something that may be a resurrected serial killer, in Spook Central County. You're more than a hunter. A _renegade_ hunter. And I just… want to know you better."

"I don't think we're at the _exchanging tragic back stories_ phase of our friendship yet." A playful smile could be heard in her voice.

"So, you've decided we _are_ friends," Lucas echoed her playfulness.

For a time they listened to passing cars and the sound each other breathing. Lucas did not really expect Rachel to open up to him. Anyone who screamed in their sleep like that must have been gutted of all trust at some point, and no one chose the hunter's path for the good times.

"Why are _you_ here?" Rachel's tone was soft, her question genuine. "And why do you have wings?"

Lucas lowered his head. He did not want to talk about the tattoo or the scars it concealed. He wished she had not seen it, just as he wished she had not seen him fall into a trance earlier while listening to the ghosts of Bill Breaker's victims. Though he was vulnerable, exposed for the freak he thought he was, he felt a kind of kinship with Rachel. He swallowed hard, and offered her his truth.

"When I was a kid, about four years old, something happened to me. My dad took me fishing, just like we did every weekend in the summer, but when we got out on the lake something went wrong. I was little, but I still remember something hitting the boat and rocking it. It kept hitting us, and the boat was rocking side to side until it almost turned over. My dad was scared. I'd never seen my dad scared of anything—" Lucas stopped short, cleared his throat and took a long breath. The memory was still sharp even twenty years later.

"A boy swam up to the surface. He was an older boy, and he was… so pale. He was dead. I knew it. He just floated there, staring at us. My dad started to cry. I remember him saying he was sorry again and again, and, uh…" He caught himself fidgeting with his hands as his eyes began to sting. He cleared his throat again.

"The boy, his name was Peter, grabbed my dad and pulled him into the water. That was the last time I ever saw my dad. I waited there in our boat, so scared I couldn't even cry. Peter came back. I can still see him, breaking the surface of that black lake, and he just stared at me with those damn dead eyes. It was well after dark before anyone realized we were missing. I don't know how long I was out there, all alone with Peter in the middle of the lake. I can't explain it in a way anyone understands, but I could hear him. He told me things I didn't want to know. He got in my head and showed me how he died. He made me feel what it was like to drown while someone held me under the water."

Rachel listened quietly. The pain in his voice was vivid. She reached out for him, hesitantly, doubting herself and unsure of his reaction, though when her hand found his shoulder in the near darkness she felt him ease back. She drew her hand inward across his shoulder, turning it slightly to run her thumb up the back of his neck, her touch more soothing to him than she could know.

"After the rescue I couldn't speak. I was so deep in shock I just couldn't form words anymore, and the longer I went without talking the harder it was to try. And Peter was so loud inside my head. I sort of… folded in on myself. My poor mom. I can't imagine what it must have been like for her."

Lucas fell silent for a moment, breathing slowly, deeply, as Rachel continued stroking his neck and shoulder, her hand firm and warm. She was the only person other than Corey he had ever opened up to like this, and even Corey had only gotten an abbreviated drunk-babble version of events. He kept his history closely guarded for living through it had only brought isolation and pain.

"A couple years later things got real bad. Peter started screaming in my head all day and all night. Poor kid just wanted to go home to his mom. I don't think he really understood what had happened to him. He was all fear and rage. He went on a killing spree. And you know what conspicuous, mysterious deaths bring."

"Hunters," Rachel answered, enthralled by his story. The contact between his skin and hers was lulling, a delicately complex intimacy she craved just as deeply as he did. It had been a while since she had touched another person with something other than her fist.

"You got it. Two guys rolled into town on a hunt for whatever was killing people around the lake. My mom and I met them because my grandpa was the Sheriff at the time. I remember them like they were eight feet tall and cool as hell," Lucas huffed with a light laugh. "One of these guys, he kept talking to me even though I couldn't respond to him. He was the first adult other than my mom who didn't treat me like I was broken, or less than normal, less than other kids. I couldn't talk but I could hear people, ya know? He just kept trying to reach me. And he did. He told me what happened to him when he was a kid. He told me he believed me. He told me he understood. He broke through and found me, and I was able he help him find Peter. That was Dean Winchester."

Rachel had heard Lucas say those same words, powerful words, _I believe you_ , to a young girl, a witness, when she had first met him, and she again wondered how things might have been different if only someone had believed her. If only someone had spoken those words to her and comforted her in her terror instead of what they had done to her. "He brought you back," she said quietly.

"Yes, he did. But not before Peter came for us. He almost took my mom, drowning her in the bathtub, but Dean's brother Sam saved her life. He pulled her out of the tub with his bare hands and I still don't know how. I've fought vengeful spirits. They are inhumanly strong. But I was there and I watched him pull her out of the water. Peter took me next, lured me right into the lake. The water was so cold my muscles didn't work, I couldn't swim or kick, and I was so scared. Peter was face to face with me, screaming. And then Dean grabbed me and pulled me up. When we broke the surface of the water I broke free of Peter's grip on me. I gasped in as much air as my chest would hold and I was free."

After a brief silence, a break from the intensity, Rachel asked, "What happened to Peter?"

"Yeah," Lucas sighed. "This is where it gets real messed up. Peter was accidentally drowned by some friends. They were roughhousing and it went too far. They were scared, they didn't know what to do, so they buried his bike and never told anyone and he became a missing person cold case. My grandpa was one of those boys. That's why Peter came after my family. He drowned in the lake trying to rescue me with Dean. My mom was devastated, but she knew Peter's mom needed closure, so she took his bike home and explained what had happened to him. Mrs. Sweeney was grateful to be able to put her son to rest after all those years. But, word travels fast in a small towns, I went from being the freak that couldn't talk to being the grandson of a murderer. We moved away within a year for a fresh start." Lucas's tone darkened at the phrase.

Rachel felt him tense and she withdrew her hand. "It did something to you, didn't it? That experience. It changed you."

Lucas nodded slowly. "Yeah. Life sort of got back to normal until about 3 years later when I was walking past a cemetery with some friends and saw someone staring at me. I'm sure you can guess, but no one else saw him. Just me. Then the night terrors got worse, and day terrors, too, I guess. It was like every lost spirit in town came at me. Some of them were dangerous, too. The level of supernatural activity in our apartment was off the charts sometimes. Doors slamming, lights flickering, footsteps inside the walls. My mom was attacked several times. She learned to throw salt and even a few incantations to protect us. When I got a little older I got more control but by then we had already moved six times, I was known as the weird kid, and the bullying never really stopped. I nearly flunked out of school because I spent all my time researching what this was and how to stop it. That's when I learned there are worse things out there than ghosts."

"Lucas," Rachel said, her voice low yet bright with realization. She clicked on the small flashlight she kept on the night stand and shined it on Lucas, tracing her fingers over the finely detailed black feathers that decorated the upper half of his back, stretching across his broad shoulders, wrapping down around his arms to his elbows. "They're crow's wings."

Lucas sighed and lowered his head. "Yes," he said quietly. The tattoo was deeply personal and difficult to explain. He usually kept it covered, knowing no one could fully understand its meaning.

"You know the lore."

"Yes."

"Carriers of dead souls. Messengers between worlds."

Lucas nodded, half entranced by the delicate stroke of her fingertips across his shoulders.

"Misunderstood and feared."

"I usually keep them covered," Lucas sighed, his stomach rolling, his chest tightening. He was laid out bare before her, and she was taking in every detail.

"Crows beautiful creatures. Highly intelligent and loyal. It suits you. I like it."

Lucas raised his head, turned toward her. "What does yours mean? The one between your shoulders. I saw it earlier."

"It's an anti-possession symbol," she replied, capturing him in her copper gaze.

"Anti _possession_? Possession by what?" he asked, once more learning something from her.

"Demons." Her eyes darkened for a moment, an expression that chilled Lucas's blood. "It means I'm clean. Safe. Nothing can take me for a ride."

Lucas blinked. He had, of course, heard of demonic possession, but always in the context of something rare, not the kind of thing you would need a protective sigil to ward against.

"Here," Rachel said as she passed him the flashlight. She rolled over onto her other side so he could examine the symbol.

Lucas shined the light on her back, carefully hooking a finger into the back of her tank top to pull it down. He studied the black ink lines, each clean and precise, forming a five point star encircled by seventeen flames, the ones above the points more prominent than the rest.

"Should I have one?"

Rachel shrugged. "That depends on your line of work." She rolled back over to face him, her hazel eyes glittering in the ambient white light of the flashlight Lucas held. "I'm here to stop something evil and save some lives."

"So am I. And this place brings me one step closer to finding Dean Winchester. I want him to know that when he saved my life he saved several lives. Because I have stopped some evil things. And, I want to learn from him."

Lucas's dark eyes burned with a fire Rachel could relate to. She took a deep breath and offered him her own truth. "I lost my family to the supernatural. I will hunt down and kill every evil son of a bitch I can until one of them kills me. No one should go through that loss."

"You parents?"

"Parent. My mom. She was all I had. I never knew my father."

Lucas put his hands on hers. For a long moment they drifted into each other's eyes, forging a connection neither expected.

Rachel smiled. "Get some sleep. Tomorrow, we got work to do."


	6. Chapter 6

The Challenger kicked up a trail of dust as they drove down the long stretch of dirt road, an unmarked turn off the old highway spur. Breaker's place stood stark and abandoned in the yellow-gold glare of the autumn sun, past rustling corn fields and the mud crusted expanse of a foul-smelling hog farm. His home, a century-old two-story farmhouse, loomed at the forefront of his property, its weathered, peeling paint, once a bland shade of brown, was now sun bleached and cracked, revealing the rain darkened wood beneath. Several windows were broken, and the screen door hung limp from its disheveled frame. Behind the house loomed the dark figure of the shop, its corrugated steel walls unbothered by the passage of time, its lightless windows untouched by vandals. The wrecking lot, graveyard of twisted vehicles and murdered women, rested silently behind a high chain link fence, the desperate whispers of its ghosts drifting on the cool breeze.

Rachel scowled as she pulled up. A bright red late-model Ford pickup was parked alongside the house.

"Hunters?" Lucas guessed.

"No," Rachel said, drawing the word out, eyeing the truck. "That truck is too nice. More likely a location scout for a paranormal film crew, or maybe dark tourists."

Lucas shrugged. "This car is nice," he muttered.

"You don't know how many times I've rebuilt her," she replied with a wink.

A shy grin teased his lips at her reply, unsure if she was intentionally flirting with him. He pulled his mala beads and a small container of salt from his backpack, tucking

them carefully into the pockets of his leather jacket.

"I've got a sawed-off loaded with salt rounds under my seat," Rachel said quietly, her brow furrowed, her eyes on the pickup. "But I'm not taking it out until we get rid of whoever this is." She tucked her EMF detector into her pocket with her tactical flashlight.

Lucas and Rachel exited the car simultaneously, a natural synchronicity to their movement, both turning quickly in response to a voice from behind them.

"Are you here to view the property?" inquired the older man, half distracted by the photo of the house he was taking with his tablet. He was small-framed, casually well dressed, and just beginning to bald. "I mean, it's not officially on the market yet, but I'd be happy to show you around while I'm here. Um, otherwise I would have to ask you to leave. This is bank property, and you're technically trespassing." His hesitant tone indicated he was not a person comfortable with confrontation.

"Actually, we're writing a paper for a class project on, uh, local folklore," Lucas offered. He extended his hand. "I'm Lucas, this is Rachel. And if it's not breaking any rules, we'd love a tour of the property."

"Jeffrey," the man replied, shaking Lucas's hand, then Rachel's, who produced her most charming smile in return. "I'm just here to do the appraisal. I don't know what kind of folklore you're looking for here. It's just an old junk yard," he said with a shrug. "It was abandoned decades ago. The previous owner passed away I believe. Ownership eventually reverted to the bank, and with property values increasing because of new developments, it's going up for sale. The EPA already came out and did their thing." Jeffrey trailed off, taking another picture.

"Their thing?" Lucas prompted.

"Yeah, they came out and did all the environmental testing. They dug up ground samples to check for contamination. Wrecking yards have a bad habit of dumping things into the ground, contaminants, instead of using proper disposal methods. And this place was operating thirty-some years ago way out here in the middle of nowhere. Obviously, the tests didn't come back too clean, so they had to do some environmental cleanup." Jeffrey waved his hand toward the fenced area. Most of the old junk yard had been dug up and bulldozed over, every inch of corrupt earth disturbed and overturned.

Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Do you know when that was?"

Jeffrey shrugged. "I think about a year and a half to two years ago."

Lucas met Rachel's eyes. The likelihood of scattered, undetected human remains was high in a place like this, one that had served as both killing ground and burial ground, as well as small objects of spiritual attachment, and a disturbance on this level would easily have roused an angry ghost from its grave. She gave him a nod, reading him loud and clear.

More interested in the _unofficial_ tour, Rachel stepped away quietly, making her way toward the shop, the hub of Breaker's successful towing business which, according to the police reports, also served as his kill room. She stopped halfway between the house and the shop. A set of tire tracks ran all the way up unpaved the driveway. She looked back at Jeffrey's truck, observed how it was parked down beside of the house, pulled off to the side of the tracks. They appeared to be relatively fresh and undisturbed. She walked further up the driveway, taking in the scene; the sag of the dilapidated house, the stench of the hog farm, the creak of tree branches in the breeze. Further up the driveway she discovered Breaker's old tow truck, a hulking relic of faded paint and rusting chains. It was parked alongside the shop, dusty tires perfectly aligned with the fresh tracks. She looked back down the drive and found that Lucas, still talking to Jeffrey, had not taken his gaze off her. She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then down to the tire tracks, and motioned to the tow truck. Lucas nodded. He would take a look as soon as he was done interviewing the appraiser. He watched her open the shop door and slip inside, a slight frown forming on his face the moment she was out of his sight.

The unexpected sound of a decayed little bell jangling above the door caused Rachel to flinch. She steadied herself, pulling a small but powerful flashlight and her EMF detector from her hoodie pocket. The front room of the shop consisted of a service counter, a cluttered desk flanked by three filing cabinets, a long dead soda vending machine, and two hard plastic chairs. A thick blanket of greasy dust coated every surface. The air was stagnant and musty. She pushed through the swinging door into the shop itself, slowly working her flashlight beam into every corner, stepping cautiously into the gloom of the empty repair bay, scanning for anything out of the ordinary, a close eye on the EMF readings.

Billy Breaker, formless in the daylight hours, watched keenly as this beautiful young woman crossed the threshold into his domain. His eyes, or rather, what would become his eyes after nightfall, tracked her movements through the dark vastness of the shop, and he fell in behind her, shadowing her, his unnatural gait bringing him closer with each step.

The air temperature around Rachel dropped, coaxing a shiver from her, her smooth skin reacting with a wave of goosebumps as the sudden chill penetrated the warmth of her hoodie and she saw her breath, a wispy lace of steam, curling from her lips. The EMF detector sitting quietly in her hand suddenly lit up red, the needle twitching against the far right-hand side of the display, indicating electromagnetic activity greater than what it was designed to detect.

Breaker loomed close, the smallest space between them. Despite his growing desire he could not touch her. Not yet. He pressed forward, burying his face in her hair, taking in the vibrant scent carried by the warmth of her living flesh. Bitter cold gripped her, running like ice water down her spine. The air around her thickened, she fought to breathe, her pulse throbbing in her ears drowning out the piercing sounds of the EMF detector.

Lucas thanked Jeffrey for his time and watched him drive off. An inexplicable chill ran through him and his stomach rolled as he turned his attention back to where he had last seen Rachel. The whole vibe of the property had changed, awakening with a dark, sickening pulse. He sprinted up the long driveway to the shop and burst through the door without hesitation.

Rachel gasped and called his name, unaware she had been holding her breath.

Lucas grabbed her hand and led her quickly out of the shop, away from dust and darkness and the sinister presence. Once more in the sunshine she breathed easier.

"Lucas," she said, still holding his hand. "He's in there. I can feel it."

Lucas instinctually squeezed her hand before they both let go. "Did you see anything?"

"No. But the EMF went nuts and I felt… _something._ And look at this." She walked to the tow truck. "Look at the tracks. Someone, or something, has driven it recently."

Lucas frowned. Everything on this property had the air of desertion, a stark lifelessness to it, except the tow truck. As he looked more closely he saw the pattern of the tracks was deep, having been driven over several times. Rachel squatted down behind the truck. She saw them too.

"Can a truck be possessed and drive itself? Can a ghost drive?" She still sounded shaken.

"Maybe…" Lucas looked back toward the shop, at its hollow windows, unable to shake the feeling they were being watched. "We should go," he added quickly, the hair on the back of his neck rising once more. "Let me look into the spirit lore, call a friend, and figure out what we're dealing with here."

"You felt him touch you?" Lucas asked, taking a bite of his bacon cheeseburger.

Rachel nodded, poking restlessly at her grilled chicken salad. "He was up close and personal. I didn't feel good."

"No, it's very uncomfortable, when a ghost gets… physical."

Rachel raised her eyes from her salad to meet Lucas's. "Does it happen to you a lot?" she asked quietly.

Lucas shrugged. "Sometimes. It can help me understand or speak with a lost spirit if I let them touch me. It's eerie, and I don't like it, but you do what you have to do, right? The vengeful ones, the real nasty bastards, just hit like drunk stepdads," he said with a sad huff.

"You say that from experience?"

"Oh, no. No. My friend Corey says that. We, uh, put one down a long time ago. It got ugly. We both got beat up pretty bad. We were in the ambulance and he looked at me and said _that one hit like a drunk stepdad._ It's been kind of an inside joke ever since."

Rachel stared out the window at the deepening gold of the sunlight as dusk approached. "What do we know?"

"We know that Billy Breaker was a serial killer who murdered more than a dozen women until he was caught in 1989. In 1989 John Winchester came to town on a haunting case."

"The highway ghost, Amanda Marsh."

"Yes. He managed to track her back to Breaker's property, discovered her body, and did a quick salt and burn to free her spirit. He notified the authorities that he had found the body of one of the missing women. They found more bodies in the wrecking yard and attempted to arrest Breaker."

"But he killed himself before they could arrest him, and he died in his truck."

Lucas nodded. "That should have been the end of the story."

"Fast forward thirty-plus years. The EPA starts tearing up Breaker's place, which disturbs him enough that he rises from the grave and goes back out on the road, hunting women. Valorie McLoughlin vanishes out on the old highway around the same time, and now we have a new highway ghost."

"How is he getting around?" Lucas asked around a mouthful of fries. "Ghosts have rules, and they're pretty strict."

"He killed himself inside his truck. Can his spirit possess and operate it?"

"In theory, yes. If a ghost can draw up enough energy it can move objects and effect anything electrical, like flickering lights or starting cars. But the most he could do is run someone off the road or hit them. Valorie and her car vanished without a trace."

"Could he be possessing someone? Maybe a transient squatting in the house?" Rachel finally took a bite of her salad, crunching the greens contentedly.

Lucas sighed uncomfortably. "I… I don't think he's a ghost."

"Why not?"

He met her eyes for a moment. "Because I couldn't see him."

Rachel nodded. They finished their meal in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"I'm going to call Corey and see what he can give me."

"Your friend is a hunter?"

Lucas rocked his head side to side. "He's more of a researcher. He was heavily into occult studies when we met, and I mean he studies _everything_. I worry sometimes that he dabbles in things he shouldn't, but, that's the nature of the job, right?"

"Don't we all?" Rachel sipped her iced tea. "Lucas, I think I know why we didn't see Valorie last night."

Lucas felt his stomach drop. "Because I was with you."

"Yes. Breaker preyed on vulnerable women. Your highway ghost has only appeared to lone women, probably to warn them or scare them away before he can get to them. I'll head out on my own tonight. See what I can see."

"I don't like that idea," Lucas said, his tone sharper than he intended, his dark eyes narrowing.

"I might find Valorie," Rachel replied coolly, her golden eyes almost wolf-like in the fading sunlight. She noticed the protective edge to his voice, though she chose not to acknowledge it.

"And Breaker might find you." Again, Lucas caught the sternness in his voice. Rachel might be a skilled hunter, but alone and unarmed she would be easy prey for a killer with powers they did not yet understand the nature of.

Rachel smirked. "Then I'll kick him in the nuts."

"At least let me follow you."

"Lucas," she sighed, leaning closer to him, capturing his dark gaze with hers. "I have been on my own, fighting things that go bump in the night, for a long time. I'll be fine."

Lucas's jaw flexed furiously but he did not argue with her. "Something feels very wrong here," he finally said, his voice low and strained. "Be careful. And if you're not back in an hour, I'm going after you."


End file.
